The Wrath of the Righteous

Lady Jenna's Journal 9

The Grey Garrison

So we’re told to take on the Grey Garrison next. Having taken out the outside defenses in my previous journal, we are to set off on this task, made harder by the fact that Sergio went on a midnight raid and is now missing in action. Really for the first floor there is not much to say, there were a couple of tieflings or creatures that were corrupted by the Worldwound. It was easy and we proceeded without much effort. We did find a desecrated temple to make whole, and a hidden cash of weapons that had not been found even when the enemy took the building over. But the second floor was where the problems began.

We climb the stairs and begin to move in when the whole second floor comes to life at once. The worst being this alchemist who keeps throwing bombs. Poor Aveline is at the wrong spot again and keeps having to deal with concoction after concoction thrown her way. There are giant flies, Peryton and some other creatures coming our way. Aveline shuts the door holding the alchemist in check, while I stunned and blocked most of the western part of the second floor. This allowed the others to slowly start mopping up the creatures that were there. By the time the Alchemist and his guard could get the door open from Aveline a lot of the enemy was gone, although Aveline, I must note learned not to set a creature on fire that had its horns impaled upon her.

We proceed up to the third floor where the fragment of the wardstone is, and they want to perform some ritual to corrupt it. As we head up the steps we can feel the power of the wardstone and it infuses us as if it was a brand new day, fresh spells, and all that good stuff. Inside we meet an evil oracle named Jeslyn guarding this fragment. It’s not so bad well until she dies and Babau’s start appearing, This is a super hard fight for our group, but we eventually destroy the wardstone fragment as we were instructed to do. We find out later this causes many things to happen, and we “see” the wardstones life. What happens is the destruction of this fragment forced all the wardstones on the border to pulse with light, and their effects came back in force. Thousands upon thousands of demons are destroyed. But finishing off this wardstone made all the others ultimately fail. However had we not succeeded, and the wardstone would have been corrupted, instead of demons dying, it would have been Crusaders dying.

We receive a vision of the first wardstone being erected in the Kite here in Silverymoon in a ritual involving the aid of the Hand of the Inheritor-the herald of Iomedae : a golden, winged angel with a halo of small swords around his head. This event happens soon after the Second Crusade begins.

Then we see a vision of a 20-year-old Hulrun leading the burning of dozens of supposed " witches" in the courtyard of the Kite before the wardstone. This event launches the Second Crusade.

Then we see a vision of Khorramzadeh the Storm King leading a brazen attack on Kenabres. The Storm King manages to strike a resounding blow with his sword against the wardstone, which suffers only the tiniest of cracks as the balor’s sword shatters. Khorramzadeh is then attacked and forced to flee when the silver dragon Terendelev nearly kills him-this event launches the Fourth Crusade.

Then we see a vision of Irabeth chasing a burly dwarven man- Staunton Vhane (leader of the Hammers of Heaven mercenary group) into the courtyard containing the wardstone. Both paladins are heavily wounded, and as Staunton backs against the wardstone, smoke rises and he screams in pain. He ducks to avoid one of Irabeth’s blows, then manages to smash her knee with his hammer, dropping her to the ground. Staunton seems ready to deliver a death blow, but the sound of approaching soldiers forces him instead to back away and summon a fiendish giant wasp that he swiftly mounts and then flies away to the north, abandoning Silverymoon

We see a vision of Minagho, a beautiful demonic woman with a long thin tail, clawed hands, and curling horns protruding from where her eyes should be,
placing the wardstone fragment in this room and of Jeslyn using a wish granted by Minagho to create the cage around it before Minagho teleports away.

Now we see a vision of an event we know will now never happen-Areelu Vorlesh using a deep purple Nahyndrian crystal the size of a human’s head to corrupt the fragment, causing the entire border to flash with nauseating mauve fire that devastates the border cities and transforms countless crusaders into half-fiend slaves of the Worldwound. We realize at this point that the demons’ entire plan was to draw as many crusaders to the border to defend it from their attacks, in order to maximize the damage this event would have caused.

This is the moment the Babau’s attacked and tried to exact revenge. It was also the moment that we were infected, perhaps not the proper word, but infected with extraordinary abilities, that some would call mythic.